Dive Brief:
- Estes Express Lines pounced on an opportunity in the Yellow Corp. bankruptcy real estate auction to boost its terminal capacity for cross-border shipments into Canada, President and COO Webb Estes told Trucking Dive in an interview.
- Estes doubled its door capacity in Detroit; quadrupled its doors in Buffalo, New York; and added a Burlington, Vermont, facility near Montréal, Estes said. The carrier also bought back a lease it held at a Tacoma, Washington, terminal, he said.
- “We really focused on the Canada border,” Estes said. “Focused on the gateways, because we've seen a lot of growth from from Yellow’s exodus there and believe that we have a lot more opportunity to grow into Canada.”
Dive Insight:
Richmond, Virginia-based Estes, the stalking horse bidder in the auction, had more than one goal with its roughly $285 million in property and lease purchases from Yellow.
Case in point: None of its five most expensive acquisitions was among the Canada-focused expansions Estes mentioned in the interview.
Estes acquires two dozen Yellow terminals
Yellow property lease acquisitions
But that only illustrates the unique opportunity the Yellow bankruptcy auction presented, which executives and analysts have described as “once-in-a-lifetime.”
In Buffalo, Estes will go from 40 doors to 170 doors, the company president said.
Increased cross-border capacity at the acquired Yellow terminals will help the carrier navigate situations in which shipments must await customs clearances, he said.
“Everyone ran their own race,” Estes said, of the auction. “We bought a lot of the strategic ones we needed. But we also tried to do it efficiently, from a cost perspective. I didn't want to just spend forever on it. So we focused on a few key things. One was international.”
